


Come Hell Or High Water

by azulaahai



Category: An Ember in the Ashes - Sabaa Tahir, Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo
Genre: F/F, Helene and Laia is a lovely pairing fight me, Six of Crows AU, Very melodramatic, have only read the first book, so if I've committed any grave crimes against canon I sincerely apologize lmao
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-28
Updated: 2019-08-28
Packaged: 2020-09-28 18:48:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20430716
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/azulaahai/pseuds/azulaahai
Summary: Helene has a mysterious visitor in the night - a visitor with a request.





	Come Hell Or High Water

Dawn would arrive in just a moment, yet Helene could not bring herself to go to bed. She wasn’t finished yet. One might not think criminals had much paperwork to do, but each month a new stack of documents would begin piling up on her desk, awaiting her signing. She stifled a yawn. The familiar late-night buzz of the Barrel could be heard through her open window: drunk laughter, shouting, cheering, someone singing loudly and falsely, causing Helene to grimace. Yet she kept the window open.

A knock on the door startled her, and she thanked the saints she was alone. In her position, _ nothing _ was allowed to startle her. She was Aquilla, the dreaded, the ice queen in Ketterdam’s unreliable waters, fearsome and masked … 

Shit. _ Masked_.

“Wait”, she barked. Whoever was at her door obeyed, and she hurriedly put her mask back on. It had been foolish of her to take it off in the first place, but the cool night air against her so rarely exposed skin had been a temptation too alluring to resist.

“Come in”, she commanded, when both of her masks were in place: the physical one, hiding her features and keeping her ever a mystery in the Barrel, and her facade, the role she played to keep them all afraid, keep them all away. It had been increasingly easy to put up that charade, that of the stern and unfeeling ice queen, since Elias had died. The fact both relieved and scared her. It was necessary, of course, to keep up appearances - weakness meant death in the Barrel, so when she buried her first and last friend she left parts of herself with him below ground. She had gone back to work the next day, with her gloves off - and mask on.

But oh, how she longed sometimes, to throw that mask into the fire, watch it crumble and fade to nothing more but an ember in the ashes.

Her door opened at last, and Zack entered. Helene tried to hold back her annoyance. There were always guards awake at night, of course, but Zack usually insisted on taking the night shift on the eves when he knew Helene would be up working. A _ possessive _ gesture, and unwarranted - Helene could kill ten men in the same time it took for Zack to kill one. She was just about to open her mouth and tell him something like that - when she saw he wasn’t alone.

“You have a visitor.” Zack’s voice was low, careful, as if fearing her reaction.

He stepped aside to fully reveal a girl behind him. Helene’s heart skipped a beat, in surprise and something else she would rather not acknowledge.

The girl was a special kind of gorgeous, with raven hair flowing over a simple dress and golden eyes that gleamed like the sun. There was something haunted over her, a worry on her shoulders that made Helene ache to relieve her of it. 

Had Elias been in the room with them, this girl would have him tongue-tied and distracted.

But he wasn’t there, and when Helene waved of Zack, whose eyes were imploding with jealousy, they were completely and utterly alone. Something warm and tingling spurred in Helene’s stomach when the girl seemed to be quite pleased by that fact.

“Hello.” It had been quite a while since Helene spoke with another person with the intent of being charming, not intimidating. 

“Hi.” The girl smiled a half-smile at the less-than-formal greeting, and Helene returned it, gesturing for the girl to take a seat. 

“Sorry, I don’t believe I caught your name.”

“Laia.” She sat on the edge of the chair, as if ready to get up at any moment. 

“Laia”, Helene repeated. “I’m Aquilla.” A small, childish part of her longed to give Laia her first name, her real name, the one no one had called her by since Elias died. 

But the mask was on. 

And this girl had come to see Aquilla, not Helene. 

“So, _ Laia _, what brings you here tonight?”

Laia hesitated, looking down at the floor in silence. Helene leaned forward in her chair, curious in a way she hadn’t been in months. When Laia finally looked up and met her gaze, the beauty of - and determination in - those golden eyes had Helene breathless. If Helene herself was ice, this girl before her was _ fire _, sparkling embers and raging flames. (Helene felt herself melting.) 

And in that moment, as if by a saintly intervention; the first light of day broke into the room through the open window, a ray of sunshine cast behind Laia, the sun reaching out for it’s daughter.

Dawn had come.

And so Laia spoke, her voice trembling but clear. 

“I want you to help me break my brother out of Hellgate.” 


End file.
